Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria (ECCV) and the ALP

Hakan Akyol discusses the relationship between the Ethnic Communities' Council of Victoria (ECCV) and the ALP

Created:

unknown

Date Added:

17 February 2009

Source:

source not available

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

4.5 MB

Length:

01min46sec

Transcript

Akyol:

00:09

I don’t think it’s a case of one or the other, I think it’s a combination of both. I mean, some of those ethnic community leaders and communities or individuals thinking well, in terms of – to be part of that process and have a say and have a political representation and sort of have a greater say in not only (UNCLEAR 00:26) of a grass roots, developmental and lobbying that, was a natural progression sort of, the moving to the political arena and obviously some of them (UNCLEAR 00:35) etcetera and so that influence helped facilitate that. But that was also a reflection of what was happening in the community as well in terms of that greater awareness and understanding of what the systems and processes were and so – so whether there were or not sort of political participation in the sort of, the membership ranks or the voting ranks it was a genuine – because some of that sort of developments of multiculturalism etcetera in Victoria as well, in a support for cultural diversity and festivals etcetera, was sort of stimulated by its sort of national policies as well and so lobbying by some of those political – some of those ethnic leaders, the Walter Lippmanns of the world with, you know, the Whitlam Government and the Fraser Government so – a large development of that. I mean it’s certainly – their involvement in the political arena and the fact that they were a relatively large proportion of the community, would have meant that by any notion, wherever that sort of developed would have an influence on the political agenda.